Am Fri, 2 Mar 2012 15:23:16 +0800 schrieb Oon-Ee Ng <[email protected]>:
> As I understand it the reason the AUR doesn't support split packages > is more along the lines of "hard to implement" and/or "noone has > bothered to add it" rather than "the AUR shall not have split > packages". As long as there's not support for them in AUR for whatever reasons they are not supported by AUR. > If a workaround allows split packages to work fine without > having to rewrite the AUR, that's a GOOD thing to me. Note: 'work' > means with makepkg. That does not mean only with makepkg. And even with makepkg there could be several issues. I have tried this workaround before for checking if it's an option for my package linux-fbcondecor, since the package linux has become a split package. But for very good reasons I change that package to a single package. A workaround is not a fix. A workaround can but doesn't need to work. In this case it does not work. > Helpers are only helpers. Nothing wrong with using them, but they're:- > a) not official Split packages in AUR are not official. > b) not a suitable substitute for knowing how to download a tarball and > run makepkg I know how to download tarballs and run makepkg. But I want to easily maintain my system and not to check every package individually. That's what the AUR helpers are for. Otherwise I could switch to Windoze again. In Windoze I have to check on the websites of every single software if there's an update and to download and install it manually. > If a user can't do b) AUR helpers do them a dis-service, IMO. Better > to learn what's going on behind the scenes. And what? I can do b), but if you have 100+ packages installed from AUR then it's not possible anymore to keep your system up-to-date without a helper. And again, split packages are NOT supported by AUR, a workaround is NOT a fix, so it's NOT the helper's fault that they can NOT handle split packges. They just can NOT find the subpackages of a split package on AUR, because AUR does NOT show them, because AUR does NOT support split packages. > I've used yaourt and bauerbill before, and they DO make things easier, > but if we ever reach the point that a large group of users only know > how to use the AUR through helpers Arch would be a very different (and > worse) place. That's a totally different topic and has nothing to do with this split package issue. That's the reason why the AUR helpers are not officially supported and won't be moved to [community]. Btw., this is the only reason for that. Just that simple. Either build support for split packages into AUR or just don't upload split packages to AUR, not either with such a dirty workaround. And, yes, it is dirty. Heiko
